Puppy Raspi Zap6

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amj
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Raspberry Pi 2

#31 Post by amj »

A week ago today I took delivery of a Raspberry Pi 2. I've run the current Raspbian on it (a joyless experience) but am now slightly suprised to be able to say that I have Puppy zap6 running on the RPi2.

The methodology I followed is derivative of that described by woodenshoe here and by MU here. The sequence was as follows:
  • Download the latest rpi-firmware from Git (see posts by woodenshoe and MU). That got me kernel version 3.18.8 plus associated modules.
  • Write the zap6 image onto a micro-SD card (open a terminal box and use the dd command).
  • Mount the boot partition on the micro-SD card and delete bootcode.bin, kernel.img and start.elf.
  • From the rpi-firmware master, copy the following files to the boot partition: bootcode.bin, COPYING.linux, fixup_cd.dat, fixup.dat, fixup_x.dat, kernel7.img, kernel.img, LICENCE.broadcom, Module7.symvers, Module.symvers, README.md, start_cd.elf, start.elf and start_x.elf. (This is probably overkill, working out a minimal set is for later. However previous experiments using sub-sets of these files did not work).
  • Edit config.txt. I added to the start of the file a device_tree= command (i.e. no device tree). My understanding is this tells bootcode.bin to boot up the old-fashioned way and not to go looking for .dtb files.
  • Unmount the boot partition and mount the Puppy partition.
  • From the rpi-firmware master, copy the 3.18.8+ and 3.18.8-v7+ directories to lib/modules (so that they co-reside with the original 3.1.9-zapu-cutdown modules).
  • Put the micro-SD card in the RPi2 and boot-up.
  • If you have a system, be patient, allow the system time to execute first-boot procedures and then run through the usual Puppy startup tasks of choosing locale, timezone, keyboard layout etc.
  • Once all is stable, open a terminal box and type depmod.
  • From the menu, go to System -> Info -> Hardinfo hardware information and look at the summary. I was told Puppy had 949Mb of RAM. That seems to imply that 64Mb was allocated to the GPU by default.
I've not started developing a system as yet. This is just a quick post to say that it is possible to run zap6 on RPi2.

starhawk
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#32 Post by starhawk »

Now that 01micko might actually read this since he's back... ;)
starhawk wrote:What is the status of this PupPi version? I now have a RasPi (a friend gave me one) and I would like to get Puppy running on it. I can assist with testing but my dev skills are barely there so I can't really program anything :(
My Pi is a Model B, not a B+ and not a 2 :)

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don570
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#33 Post by don570 »

Barry Kauler wrote that he ordered a Raspy 2 when it was first announced
but he hasn't mentioned it since.

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starhawk
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#34 Post by starhawk »

Doesn't help me, I've got the original...

01micko, you around here somewhere? ;)

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01micko
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#35 Post by 01micko »

Starhawk.

It should work (on a B or B+), but I'm not supporting any more. Too much other stuff to do. You'll have to find a work around for the 256MB RAM limit, I think MU in an earlier post changed the kernel; not so difficult as it only supports full installs.
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

starhawk
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#36 Post by starhawk »

01micko wrote:I'm not supporting any more
:cry: :cry: :cry:

amj
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#37 Post by amj »

Over the past couple of weeks I've put together a zap6 system running with 3.18.8 kernel to run on a RPi2. I've played around with zap6 several times but this time I've put together a system I intend use. I'm not displeased with the rusult, so I decided to re-read this thread and see if there was anything 'useful' I could add to what has already been posted.

Several of the early posts above refer to kernel issues/bugs. It has amused me to see how several of the early examples of 'odd behaviour' (in both alpha4 and zap6) have simply disappeared as the kernel has progressed and various shortcomings eliminated.

By the way, the latest kernel I have downloaded is 4.1.13. For the hell of it I ran zap6 with 4.1.13 half expecting it not to work at all, but found it behaved OK. I've not done enough with that kernel to be able to say that it works, but I did not encounter any obvious problems.

There is an issue with gparted that has not been mentioned above. There is a missing dependency. You need to download and install libatkmm-1.6-1_2.22.6-1_armel.deb. Once that is done gparted will work OK.

As has been pointed out above, the processor in the original RPi simply was not powerful enough to facilitate web-surfing (no matter which browser you installed or how you configured your system). It's a different story with the RPi2. The RPi2 is a much more capable device and the version of Seamonkey/Iceape built into zap6 works well.

Now that Debian have taken the squeeze armel repository offline, anyone who wants to run Puppy on RPi/RPi2 and enhance it with pre-compiled binary packages (rather than compiling applications via devx) has no other option than zap6.

Transmission-gtk (bit torrent) works extremely well on alpha4. On zap6 you run into the same problem that prevented the inclusion of gnome-mplayer. Transmission wants GTK 3 and zap6 doesn't have it. One way to sidestep this issue is to install Tranmission-qt (plus the QT4 modules it needs). That will give you a prefectly usable bit torrent client. The menu entry created when you install Transmission-qt does not work. I suggest you add a script to /usr/local/bin to launch Transmission and create a desktop icon to launch the script. That does work.

Audio players are a matter of taste. I've never been a big fan of gnome-mplayer and am not bothered by it's absence. By the way, pmusic works fine. You can edit the 'play' icon on the desktop to point to it. I experimented with quite a few audio players on alpha4 but Aqualung was the only one that worked really well. That said I've not tried it on zap6. I have tried xmms2 on zap6 and gave it a definite thumbs down. However what I have done on both alpha 4 and zap6 is to install VLC. Of course Debian builds of VLC will not run as root, but you can run VLC from a console as spot. As an audio player it works perfectly on default settings (and it gives me the functionality I want).

Other applications that run OK on zap6 are XFE file manager, Sylpheed mail client, Pan newsreader and Geeqie image viewer. I also have a few multimedia tools installed including mhWaveEdit and MKVtoolnix.

At a practical level, putting together a RPi/RPI2 system is easier than it used to be. There are now very good HDMI to VGA converters available that work and are inexpensive. Lots of people have an old VGA monitor in their spare room, not everyone has a spare HDMI monitor doing nothing. My local hobbyshop sells HDMI to VGA converters for 15 euro each. I have a 15 year old CRT monitor attached to a RPI via a converter and it gives a very good result.

To my way of thinking, the Raspberry Pi and Puppy Linux are a natural fit. Both being rooted in essentially similar minamalist philosophies.

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don570
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#38 Post by don570 »

Playmusic works well as audio player in Puppy Linux alpha4 version.
It's one version behind. version 0.1.8 is the final version

PLAYMUSIC code

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There are deb packages that can be downloaded from official site
for instance mtpaint 3.40. I wonder if they can be used??
http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/pool/main/m/

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If people had apps they wanted to distribute for Zap6,
The easiest way would be to make SLACK txz archives.
This maintains folder structure.

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amj
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#39 Post by amj »

Device Tree boot

When I first got my hands on a RPi2 in March and set about trying to see if zap6 (and alpha4) would run on the new board I stuck with the legacy boot sequence. At the time the new device tree boot sequence was an extra unknown in a situation that already had enough unknowns.

Recently I decided it really was time to see if I could switch to the new boot sequence. It turned out to be ludicrously simple. Remove the device_tree= instruction from config.txt which instructs the bootloader to use legacy mode and add to the boot partition (/dev/mmcblk0p1) the standard device tree file for Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, called bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb. That's it.

I've been running with the device tree boot for a while now and as far as I can tell the system functionality is not effected in any way. The boot sequence is a little faster and a couple of error messages that used to be logged during start-up (see: /tmp/bootkernel.log) have now disappeared.

VLC

Another change I've made to my system concerns VLC. I've been running the Debian build of VLC as spot (since it won't run as root). If you navigate to /root/.config, add a directory called vlc and make spot owner of that directory, VLC will be able to save it's settings. But VLC will still be under some restrictions that may at times be inconvenient.

I wondered if there was an alternative approach (short of re-compiling VLC). Various web sites have multiple procedures listed which supposedly allow Debian builds of VLC to run as root. Some are OS specific, others apply to specific versions of VLC. But it seems there is a simple procedure, a two byte change to the VLC binary with a hex editor, that is likely to work under all circumstances. It tried it. I'm now running VLC as root and have made it default media player for zap6 (see: /usr/local/bin/defaultmediaplayer).

Open the VLC binary in a hex editor, search for text string geteuid and modify it so that it reads getppid. Save the file. Obviously this change is best applied before you start VLC for the first time, but it can be applied retrospectively as well. My retrospective change brought a message from VLC saying 'can't find /root/%U'. So I created a zero byte file in /root called %U. VLC was happy and the message disappeared.

On the subject of hex editors, the ghex binary from the Debian wheezy armel repository will not run on zap6 because of the GTK 2 vs 3 issue. But there are other hex editors that will work.

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ally
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#40 Post by ally »

berryboot has a version of BKs builds that works on the rpi2

had the issue of no repository, with infinite patience you can still find file mirrors but it's a pain in the butt

amj, could you look at getting fatdog arm working on the rpi2, I do not have the skills.....

agree the rpi2 is a much better machine, even the pi zero is pretty nippy

:)

amj
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#41 Post by amj »

@ally

zap6 is based on Debian wheezy. The Debian wheezy armel repository is still online. It's the squeeze armel repository that is gone.
ally wrote:amj, could you look at getting fatdog arm working on the rpi2, I do not have the skills.....
Neither do I. As you know I played around with fd-arm recently and am convinced that it could be ported to RPi2. But I know nothing of the internals of fd-arm and don't have any of the devices it runs on.

Although a port of fd-arm would be nice, it's probably not the solution we really need. fd-arm is not compatable with a major repository.

What is needed is a Puppy armhf build based upon Debian jessie or an equivelent Ubuntu. I'm happy to work towards that but at my current rate of progress Debian 9 will be out before it's done.

amj
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#42 Post by amj »

RPi3

A quick note to say that I have zap6 running on an RPi3 with the current 4.1.19 (v7+) kernel. In terms of modifying/upgrading zap6, it's the same procedure as for the RPi2.

I've run zap6 on RPi2 with 4.1.13 kernel. That seemed to work perfectly and I'm not (yet) seeing any problems with 4.1.19.

In terms of the hardware, this seems to be a much smaller upgrade than the RPi to RPi2 upgrade. In terms of performance, maybe web pages load slightly faster but its not a significant difference.

Unless you specifically need more power for your USB devices or a built-in wireless and/or bluetooth interface, I can't see any urgent need to upgrade from RPi2 to RPi3. But if you do upgrade, you can still run Puppy Linux.

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don570
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#43 Post by don570 »

I used the instructions of forum member amj
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 280#832280

It was easy to install zap6 on a raspberry pi2

(Using Precise Puppy) First start with the instruction....

Code: Select all

unxz --stdout raspi-sd-4gb-zap6-5.100-ALPHA1.img.xz | dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdYOURDRIVE;sync
From the rpi-firmware master, copy the 3.18.8+ and 3.18.8-v7+ directories to lib/modules (so that they co-reside with the original 3.1.9-zapu-cutdown modules).
I accidently left out this step but zap6 still booted anyway.
There was no sound so these modules are necessary for sound.

Rox filer has a nasty bug ----> finding info of a folder.
I had to restart X

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Some comments:

Installed pclock and countdown worked
uextract ---> will allow extraction of a pet file
raspi date-time ---> Set the date and time easily on arm machine

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Attachments
raspi-date-time-1.1.pet
Set the date and time easily on arm machine
(5.71 KiB) Downloaded 299 times
Last edited by don570 on Sat 02 Apr 2016, 19:07, edited 1 time in total.

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don570
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#44 Post by don570 »

I made a mtpaint 3.45.01 zap pet package.
Also updated gtkdialog from 0.8.0 to 0.8.4 to test pmusic

gtkdialog-zap-0.8.4.pet
mtpaint-zap-3.45.01.pet
mtpaint-zap_NLC-3.45.01.pet
pmusic-zap-4.9.5.pet

Available:
http://www.mydrive.ch

User: porteus@don570
Password: porteus

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don570
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#45 Post by don570 »

Added viewnior 1.6 slideshow presenter to mydrive.ch

viewnior-zap-1.6.pet

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don570
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#46 Post by don570 »

to stop rox from crashing when using the menu I compiled again.
Perhaps the dbg file was left out

Rox-filer-zap-update.pet at http://www.mydrive.ch

install and restart x
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amj
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#47 Post by amj »

@don570: Thanks for the uploads.

I'm not sure what to make of your ROX problem. ROX has never given me any trouble. On RPi/RPi2/RPi3 with zap6 and on RPi/RPi2 with alpha4, it gets a clean bill of health from me all down the line.

I experimented a while ago running alpha4 with kernel 4.1.13 on RPi2 and saw some slight regression with a couple of minor application functions not responding as I expected. alpha4 itself still appeared to be well behaved.

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don570
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#48 Post by don570 »

Amj. Thanks for info. I'll re-install from scratch and test again.
I had left out /lib/modules :cry: Then installed later. Maybe that is problem.


Viewnior 1.6 needs 'exiv2' . Does zap already have that installed?
I will check.


I put right click menu in pmusic to add music files and uploaded again.
pmusic-zap-4.9.5.pet
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amj
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#49 Post by amj »

don570 wrote:Viewnior 1.6 needs 'exiv2' . Does zap already have that installed? I will check.
For some reason, viewnoir did not work on RPi model A and so was excluded from the alpha4/zap6 builds. (A bug in the 3.1.19 kernel maybe?) I've always used geeqie (and never investigated the viewnior problem). There is a version of exiv2 is in zap6 and I'm under the impression that it works OK with geeqie. Of course all this software dates from 2012 and updated versions may be no bad thing.

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don570
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#50 Post by don570 »

For some reason, viewnoir did not work on RPi model A and so was excluded from the alpha4/zap6 builds
I was able to compile viewnior 1.6 for zap. I might have written

Code: Select all

./configure --prefix=usr --disable-guile
I also made a viewnior 1.1 package for Barry's alpha4 sap
by taking an arm7 version I found in ibiblio and adding links for the right click menu.
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